


What You See Is What You Expect

by pyrrhical (anoyo)



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Gen, introspective
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-04
Updated: 2017-12-04
Packaged: 2019-02-10 14:03:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12913431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anoyo/pseuds/pyrrhical
Summary: Jim plays the fool, so he really can’t complain when he’s treated that way.





	What You See Is What You Expect

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for the [Lands of Magic](https://lands-of-magic.dreamwidth.org) bingo challenge. I couldn't think of anything to write for the prompt, so I went with my good, old standby: Jim Kirk.

Jim’s lost count of the number of people who’ve told him, to his face, that he had performed “better than expected,” as though his behavior had been an affront to all the myriad people expecting less of him. He’d stop playing the fool, but he’s found it’s better to be underestimated.

Someday, he might examine that and see the requisite therapists, but that day is not today. Today, Jim is just as happy to have been underestimated as he always has been. Today, Jim is really glad the pseudo-arachnid aliens didn’t think he’d be able to puzzle his way out of their web labyrinth. 

(At least, Jim’s assuming it’s some sort of web, and going to make it really clear that he doesn’t want to know anything to the contrary.)

He’s going to take the shocked expressions of the alien kidnappers and subsequent fifteen-second head start, and he’s going to run with it. In this instance, literally. 

Maybe, just maybe, he wishes his crew would stop being so surprised, sometimes. After a while, you’d think intelligent people would realize that his act of the fool was just that: an act. Maybe some have. Maybe he’s just really convincing, and his crew thinks that the man born while his father was killed, raised alone with by man he never really knew, abandoned by his brother, and with a police jacket so long he could wear it, is just incredibly lucky.

He’ll give it a few more months before he really lets himself be disappointed. After all, what has disappointment gotten him in the past, but raw feelings and self-fulfilling expectations?

It’s not like he’s willing to be honest, or to help them along any. That would ruin the act. Who, in the end, is Jim without the act?

He guesses he’ll find out, eventually.


End file.
